Sunday, April 22, 2012

Pier 39 Sea Lions

When I was in elementary school, we took a field trip to the zoo. I remember telling the group I was excited to see the seals, as 8-year-old me imitated the delightful bark. Horrified, a chaperone glared at me and said in a biting tone:

"What would your mother say if she heard that?"

Confused, I thought it best to just wander to another group.

17 years of wandering later, I ended up at Pier 39, where San Francisco is wishing the native sea lions a happy 22nd anniversary.

We're currently in the off-season, where only the sea lions who live here hang out on the docks. The rest of the docks are full at certain times of the year. I'm not sure why they take off, but my guess is they're the sea lion equivalent of traveling consultants.

There were plenty of people out taking pictures. But for every picture taken, there was a mini-dialog of what the sea lions would say if they were people:

"look at that one, he's all like bro, bro get out of my way"

"haha, this one's like bro, what bro? napping here, bro"

"oh my god! that sea lion goes better not ask me to move"

"check him out, he's like don't even try it"

Puzzled at this seemingly universal desire to personify sea lions, I wondered what their mothers would think as we headed back.